It’s been a week since I went snowboarding and I think this might be the first morning where my rib is feeling better. The larger soreness and pain in the overall area disappeared on the second day, but I’m still feeling a sharp jab right under my armpit, at probably my fifth or sixth rib. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling really good laying in bed next to a snoring Hazel, and yawned deeply, which seemed to aggravate it almost immediately for the rest of the day. On top of all this, the girls and I went to the local pharmacy and got our Covid shots Friday afternoon. Without thinking about it, I got mine in my left arm, so Saturday I felt sore pretty much all over my body. I fought through it and worked outside for the entire day, because I spent all of last week trapped behind my desk. Despite all of this it felt really good to be outside and moving around, even though by about noon, all I wanted to do was go inside and take a nap. Today it’s sore but not actively reminding me it’s there, so I’ll take it extra easy and see if I don’t make it angry again.
I’ve been working on a new project: pouring a silicone mold of the 3-D printed dealer badges I made. I bought a simple mold kit off of Amazon last week, boxed in a square on a piece of scrap wood, mixed the silicone, and poured it on Tuesday evening. The silicone didn’t set overnight like it was supposed to, and a little reading revealed that that was probably due to the cold in the house, or perhaps my imperfect non-scientific mixing process. The silicone is supposed to be mixed according to weight, which is about as easy as measuring the volume of a sneeze. I put the mold on top of a radiator in the spare bedroom and let it heat up for a couple of days until the top was tacky to the touch—by then it should have been completely solid. To get it to firm up, I put it down on the workbench under a photography bulb and let it sit for a couple of hours. What wound up happening was that the silicone heated up to the point where it started melting the PVA plastic underneath and the whole mold basically fell apart into a sticky glob. So I’ve got to go back to the drawing board. I’m going to make an appointment to go back to the library and spend a good three hours printing a new version of the badge, then remix some silicone and try to set it up for success this time.
Sunday morning the cats and dog seemed to be really interested in the fireplace. Sipping my coffee in the den before the girls got up, I heard a flurry of commotion in the living room and investigated, but found nothing. Nox sat in front of the fireplace, staring into the glass as if he was watching a really good episode on TV. The sound was not a cat sound, and the dog was laying next to me on the couch, so I was perplexed—but saw nothing wrong.
Later in the day the same thing happened, but this time I was in the room. Both Hazel and Nox were glued to the fireplace window. I heard a fluttering and realized there was a bird trapped behind the woodpile. I got my welding gloves from the garage, we shooed the animals away, and I opened the glass to find a very frightened, very tired catbird waiting to be released. He fluttered over to the window and sat on the sill, so I opened the one next to him and gently shooed him outside, where he flew up to sit on a branch on the oak tree. By the time I made it around to the back door, he was gone.
A brief internet search for the symbolism of meeting a catbird brings up as much contradictory information as a horoscope. It could mean good news, it could mean deceit; it could be a harbinger of new relationships or it could warn against manipulation. I choose to believe he was sent as a reminder for me to stick my head into the flue and check on the chimney, which is clean and clear.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this retro commercial from back in the days of beepers. Someone on a video I was watching referenced it, and I LOL’ed just as hard watching it yesterday as I did back in 199-whatever.